The 100 Best Dreamcast Games

Welcome to Retro-Sanctuary's Top 100 Best Dreamcast games. Now, for anyone new to the site we follow a set of guidelines for all our lists. We aim to represent the best of all genre's, we try to limit the number of sequels included to allow more underrated games to shine, and also tend to avoid games that have been ported from earlier systems that don't use the hardware to its full potential. The best Import games are allowed, but only when they're import friendly and don't require an FAQ to play.

Thanks and enjoy the list!

100

Sword of the Berserk

Starting the list we have this hack n' slash brawler based on the violent Manga by Kentaro Miura. Its a simplistic action game where you hack your your way through the levels with your huge, oversized sword. The game is quite short, having a lot of emphasis on storyline and cut scenes (which are written by the Manga author himself). Probably best suited to fans of old-school beat-em-ups or of the Manga itself.

There weren't many good Football games on the Dreamcast, but this one is pretty respectable. Confusingly SWWS is actually the successor to the World League Soccer (Michael Owen) series of games rebranded as a Worldwide Soccer title, so it has few similarities to the classic Sega Saturn titles, but its fun nevertheless. Avoid the earlier non "Euro Edition" version as its noticeably inferior.

This was an exclusive game made for Dreamcast in Midway's "Thunder" series of racers. Gameplay in the series revolves around you boosting by picking up capsules littered throughout the levels. The games also have a lot of emphasis on learning the best routes and shortcuts. This one has you driving Monster Trucks over a range of indoor and outdoor environments, its a solid, though challenging racer with a good number of tracks and options.

Here we have a tricky platform game similar in style to the earlier Crash Bandicoots games. You run and jump through the long, winding 3D stages, ride animals, and do the occasional 2D platforming section. The main thing which sets this game apart is its magnetism mechanic. In the game you can swap between two different colours, if you're the same colour as an object it attracts you (for rope swings for example), whilst if you're the opposite colour it repels you, allowing you to bounce around the stages. You need to change on the fly, and changing to the wrong colour usually results in death! its a fun game if you can get your head around it but may frustrate if you can't.

A good version of the 4-player remote-controlled racer from the PC. Revolt plays kind of like a Kart racer, with you picking up a selection of weapons to sabotage your opponents as you race through the oversized environments. Its a fun game with quite a bit to do and see (there's a pretty good Track Editor, a stunt mode where you collect stars etc). The game was downported to PS1 and N64 but this version is obviously a lot closer to the original PC game.

The survival horror genre is very well represented on Dreamcast, in fact so well represented is it that I had to spend some time trying to work out which games I wanted to make the list and which I just had to cut. In the end I chose Dino Crisis to represent in the bottom ten, sure its a PS1 port, but with its cleaner visuals and more stable graphics its unarguably the best console version of the game available (unlike Resident Evil 3 for instance, which is arguably better on GameCube), and the gameplay and voice acting are a little more polished than the Dreamcast's own decent survival horror title, Carrier. The game itself is basically like Resident Evil with Dinosaurs (and at this stage that comparison is so overused its become a cliche), you explore a big facility solving puzzles and evading Dinosaurs whilst conserving ammo. The puzzles here are well done, and are actually a little different in execution to those of the Resident Evil games, and there's a lot of memorable set-pieces and events.

A solid action RPG that has you searching the globe for magical Orbs that are necessary to triumph over evil and rescue your kidnapped wife. The story here isn't that inspired to be honest, but luckily the dialogue between characters is very well done and whoever produced the music did a real first rate job, helping to give the title a lot of atmosphere and mood. The gameplay here is fairly simple, but good, it would've strongly benefited from a co-op mode but unfortunately there isn't one.

Stupid Invaders is a humourous point and click adventure game ported from the PC. In the game you explore, pick up and merge items, and solve puzzles (usually rewarding you with cut scenes). The story of the game surrounds a group of aliens stranded on Earth who are being terrorised by a lunatic. The graphics and art design are nice and the game is quite funny, there's a lot of instant deaths but you can save at any time so save often.

One of the lessor known Capcom fighters but don't let that dissuade you. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is a 2D fighter based on the popular Manga of the same name. Other than the usual stuff the main gameplay mechanic here revolves around the "Stand" button. This button usually calls forth an Avatar of the player and changes your stance and move set, but requires Stand gauge energy to sustain. Like all Capcom fighters the game is well constructed, has excellent art design and graphics, and the stand gauge manages to add a little variety to the gameplay.

This cinematic survival horror game garnered mixed reviews at the time but in retrospect is one of the more memorable titles of the era, including some fairly surprising content. The game has you playing as Laura, a woman who's airliner has crashed in the Canadian wilderness. She and the other survivors find that the area they are in is infested with strange plant-like monsters that take the form of humans, Laura sets out to discover what's going on. The gameplay is varied, there's both 1st and 3rd person exploration sections, random battles where you gain experience points (these play kinda' like lightgun games), lots of simplistic puzzles to solve, an a lot of emphasis on cut scenes. Its a flawed game, and not all that long either, but is definitely an interesting title to check out.